Games coming out in December 2017

I’m kinda late on this, but that’s fine. I did manage to post more than usual this month which is nice. Lot of stuff was coming out, so there was lots I needed to talk about. Good times. But with December things are more than slowing down, after the whole year being crazy it’s somehow in the holiday season that nothing all that big comes out… almost.

Usual disclaimer: This includes either games I’m interested in, games that may be/become popular and random stuff in-between… Basically anything I feel bears mentioning for any reason. Probably missing stuff because game companies are shit about announcing release dates nowadays (and good at delaying games near release), and I’m not gonna dig through the hundreds of trash indie games that come out on steam every day to find the one or 2 okay ones that pop up occasionally, unless some higher-profile indie things I care about comes out. So if there’s no/few indie games here, it’s pretty normal.

SWITCH RELEASES

Note: I am skipping the ton of ports of indie/not-really-indie games that are already on other platforms… the Switch is getting several this month, the most important ones would be The End Is Nigh and Yooka-Laylee probably.

Xenoblade Chronicles 212/01
Going on a dumb pointless tangent before actually talking about the game here… so people were really weird about this game’s release date for a reason I could never figure out. It was announced in January and they said “it’s coming out in 2017”. In following interviews with devs that 2017 date was repeated, including details about how long ago it’s been in development (it was developed alongside Xenoblade X). At E3 they said holiday 2017. Throughout the entire year though people were convinced it wouldn’t come out in 2017… for no reason at all. And somehow it seems like most people were surprised when the December 2017 date was announced, in spite of everything. Weird…
Anyways, this looks pretty cool, the first Xenoblade was quite fun (X was basically a worse version), it had a nice story, really good visuals for the console it was on and nice big worlds. The combat was interesting, but did get a bit repetitive IMO. If this game improves on that then that’s pretty great. I see lots of people complaining about the character design, but I don’t get the complaints… they look like animu characters with ridiculous clothing, it’s pretty normal stuff for video games, especially RPGs made in Japan.

MULTIPLATFORM RELEASES

Doom VFR12/01 (PC, PS4)
Doom in VR with teleportation-based movement. Seems okay, probably much less frantic than the normal game. I wouldn’t mind trying it if I were willing to waste money on a VR Headset for my PC. I’m not.

Nine Parchments12/05 (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbone)
It’s a twin-stick shooter with magic users. Largely multiplayer-focused in its design, I played the demo with a friend and it was kinda fun but nothing really mindblowing. Definitely seems like a step down quality-wise compared to their previous game, Has Been Heroes.

Hello Neighbor12/08 (PC, Xbone)
Huh, I thought this was out already. Must’ve been delayed. It’s a cute little indie game where you try to find out what’s up with your neighbor, trying to not let him find you sneaking around his house. Nothing really amazing though, from what I’ve seen from the year or 2 of beta footage people have been putting up on Youtube…
Do people still care about Hello Neighbor anymore? I feel like it’s kinda played out at this point.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+12/08 (PC, PS4)
This came out earlier this year without eX+ in the title, I believe on PC and Vita. This is a slightly enhanced version I guess.

Okami HD12/12 (PC, PS4, Xbone)
This month’s winner of the “Why no Switch?” award. This is a beloved classic directed by the badass Hideki Kamiya, people love this game for a good reason, and having it on-the-go would be absolutely amazing… So why no Switch, Crapcom?
That said, this got an HD version on PS3, I assume this is just a port of that, but this has 4K support on PC, PS4 Pro and Xbonex as a bonus. If you haven’t played Okami before, it’s definitely worth checking out.

PS4 RELEASES

LocoRoco 2 Remastered12/09
I don’t know why this is a thing. I just find it odd that they released LocoRoco remasters separately when a collection would’ve made so much more sense… if people really care about LocoRoco at all, that is.

PC RELEASE

SpellForce 312/07
I just wanted to put a PC release here, I never heard about this before seeing it was coming out but it was the most noteworthy game from the huge pile of shitty shovelware that comes out on Steam every day (definitely more noteworthy than “Milky Boobs”). It’s a real-time strategy game with RPG elements apparently reminiscent to top-down RPGs like Baldur’s Gate. Not quite my type of game but it seems interesting.

3DS RELEASE

Style Savvy: Styling Star12/25
… So I heard good things about this series which is… really weird to me. From people who you’d think wouldn’t really care about the theme or anything. So I figured I’d add that to this list just so the 3DS doesn’t feel left out. Good for you 3DS, getting a game on Christmas day and all.